FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
($25) is the second film in the Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone “Man
With No Name” trilogy and the one that should be subtitled A Tale Of Two Bounty Hunters.Eastwood’s character, referred to as Manko in this film, earns
his money working as a bounty killer.Bounty killer is the same thing as a bounty hunter, except that
all the criminals with a price on their heads usually end up dead.FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
also stars Lee Van Cleef as Colonel Douglas Mortimer, another bounty hunter
who works in the same fashion as Manko- Wanted
Dead or Alive almost always ends with Mortimer using a dead body to
collect his bounty.When
El Indio (Gian Maria Volonté) breaks out of a Mexican jail, leaving only
a single guard alive to tell the tale, both Manko and Mortimer wind up
on the trail of the $10,000.00 bounty.Manko and Mortimer cross paths in the town of El Paso, where they
both come to realize that El Indio intends to rob the back and make off
with the safe which has been carefully disguised as a piece of furniture.Although Manko and Mortimer agree to work together to capture El
Indio and his gang of bandits, both bounty hunters distrust one another
enough to play a game of cross and double cross, but neither bounty hunter
ever gets the upper hand.

Like A
FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, FOR
A FEW DOLLARS MORE is a highly stylized
“spaghetti western” filled with carefully orchestrated violence that plays
within the most cinematic of screen compositions.FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
climaxes in the traditional western fashion with extended gunfight that
leaves the heroes facing the villains in a final deadly confrontation.The largely European cast of FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
also includes Mara Krup, Luigi Pistilli and Joseph Egger.Also look for Klaus Kinski in the wonderfully overplayed role of
the Hunchback bandit.

MGM Home Entertainment has made FOR
A FEW DOLLARS MORE available on DVD
wide screen in a presentation that has not been enhanced for playback
on 16:9 displays.The transfer
restores most of the film’s 2.35:1 Techniscope aspect ratio, but the image
isn’t perfect.As it stands,
the image on FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
is reasonably sharp and detailed, but film grain is noticeable in a number
of places and the film element has its share of blemishes.Color reproduction is pretty strong, with appealing flesh tones
and better saturated hues than I’ve seen in the past.Blacks are fairly accurate and the image displays respectable contrast.As a fan of this particular trilogy of “spaghetti westerns,” I
would say that FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
deserves a new 16:9 enhanced transfer, from better elements (that I hope
still exist somewhere in Europe).

The
Dolby Digital monaural soundtrack is respectable, but this track is not
a sonic wonder.Let’s face it; the entire English soundtrack was created in
postproduction, so synchronization is far from accurate.Fidelity doesn’t run too high, with the sound being a bit harsh
on top and lacking a significant bottom end.The track is worth amplifying for Ennio Morricone’s music, but
little else.There was an
occasional crackle on the track and a mild hiss becomes discernable if
the volume is turned up too high.A French language soundtrack is also encoded onto the DVD,
as are English, French and Spanish subtitles.

The
interactive menus are very basic, delivering access to the standard scene
selection and set up features, as well as a theatrical trailer.